


i say this with humility

by ernestdummkompf (JehanFerres)



Category: 1776 (1972), 1776 - Edwards/Stone
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, M/M, References to Drugs, this is one of the gayest things i have ever written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8522200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanFerres/pseuds/ernestdummkompf
Summary: “Could you possibly tell Doctor Franklin to stop writing pathology reports that I need to send on? There are three puns in the first two lines.”





	1. Chapter 1

“John?” That was the first thing that Rutledge had said all day. He had been unusually taciturn, even for him, for the past few days – not that Dickinson particularly cared to find out why. They really only shared an office, despite being quite good friends. “Could you possibly tell Doctor Franklin to stop writing pathology reports that I need to send on? There are three puns in the first two lines.”

Dickinson hid a laugh behind his hand, but nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’ll make a note. Who’s this one for?” he asked, going over to look at the state of Franklin’s report and see if it was in any way salvageable. He made a face when he realised that there was no way.

“Just another guy taking drugs and then going out for a drive at three in the morning.” He put the report on one of the meticulously-tended piles of paper on his desk, affixing a post-it note with something scrawled on it in his illegible hand to the top of it. “I have two drunks…” He gestured to two piles of paper. “And one assault an’ battery,” he sighed.

“Well…” Dickinson brushed his hair back over his shoulder and adjusted his suit jacket, “if you want to be taken seriously I would advise working on your godawful pronunciation?” He winked.

 “Would’a thought y’all’d’ve got over your complex about my accent,” Rutledge shot back, not even looking up. “Besides which,” he added, making every effort to speak with as heavy a southern drawl as possible, “it’s a perfectly valid dialectic form of English.”

“Not in a courtroom, you won’t find.” Dickinson had gone to sit on his own desk now. Rutledge had started out finding this habit irritating, but he tended to sit on things not intended for sitting on himself now.

“Rich coming from you?”

“Hm?” Dickinson’s response was in the same joking tone as Rutledge had been using.

“I mean, until your accent decides which side of the Atlantic it’s on…” Rutledge grinned.

Dickinson laughed, and then checked the clock on the wall. “With that, however, I must be off. Sally’s caught some virus and Polly was emphatic that I was to look after her in the evening.”

Rutledge nodded, considering what to do with the pun-filled pathology report. If he hadn’t needed to give it to the judge by seven the next morning, he probably would have found it rather funny. As it was, though, he was closer to the angry side of the spectrum than he was to amusement.

After a few minutes trying to figure out what he could do with this report, he decided that his best bet would be to just go to Franklin’s lab and ask him to change it to something that he could actually use. He sent an e-mail and a text to Franklin out of courtesy, even though he was presently no more than five minutes away from the pathology lab, and that was on foot, collected up his papers, and set off.

He arrived to find that Doctor Franklin’s car was not in the car park, and cursed himself internally. He should have gone as soon as he had received the report rather than leaving it so that he could get on with work and show the report to Dickinson to lighten his spirits before he left. Still, he could probably leave a note on Franklin’s desk or with his intern.

He knew there was an intern or a new assistant or _somebody_ other than Franklin working at the lab, because he had seen him – and, indeed, talked to him – when he came to pick up the pathology report that now needed a re-write. He was a little taller than Rutledge (and probably taller than Dickinson), with dark hair tied back off his face and a slight Southern accent. Rutledge hadn’t caught which state he was from but he could probably ask him now, if he was about.

He was still in the lab, as it happened. He seemed to be involved in whatever he was doing with a centrifuge and what Rutledge assumed was just a really fancy pipette, though, so he decided that saying anything could wait, and stood in the doorway to watch what happened.

“I know you’re there, by the way, Ben.” He didn’t look up, but Rutledge could still see him smiling just a little behind his goggles.

“Not Ben, actually.” Not much of an introduction, but it would do for now.

“Oh.” He turned around, looking quizzically at Rutledge. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m assuming Ben has gone home. Can I…” He gestured to the room.

“Oh. Yes. Certainly.” He cast a cursory glance at his centrifuge, and then went over to Rutledge. “You work for… one of the law firms, right…? Sorry. I don’t know any of the names.”

“Yes, that’s me. I’m Edward Rutledge; I’m a defence lawyer with the firm just down the road.” Rutledge waved his hand vaguely, in the general direct of where he’d come from.

“Oh, I thought I’d seen you somewhere.” He smiled. “I’m Lyman Hall. I do… well, whatever Ben needs me to do, really.”

“Speaking of Ben, how long ago did he leave?” Rutledge asked. “Because…” He fished the pathology report out of his bag and showed it to Hall. “I mean. I’m going to assume that Ben wrote this, because… well.” He gestured to it.

When he looked over at Hall, he was giggling. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing, but…” He rolled his eyes. “You get used to it, but… when do you need it to be written properly for?”

“Tomorrow,” Rutledge said, making a face. “I only got it today.”

“Well, I can write one up for you tonight, if you like.” He glanced over the report. “Although, if you don’t mind my saying, I really don’t rate your chances of winning this very highly.”

“I know. I’m just trying to get him the minimum sentence, because there’s no way he isn’t going to get _something_ for this.”

“I know,” Hall laughed. “That one isn’t even a drug, or at least it isn’t one that we were able to identify.” He indicated the trace. “But it still picked it up. Wow.”

“You know; I didn’t even notice that. The rest of it is too depressing.” Rutledge made a face.

“…And that one is Ritalin,” Hall said, in a tone of mild disbelief.

“Really?” Rutledge looked confused.

“Yeah. Probably obtained illegally, since everything else seems to be.” Rutledge must have looked more confused that he thought he did, because Hall continued: “In people who _don’t_ have ADHD, it produces hyperactivity and a state of euphoria.”

“Now that I think of it, he has ADHD, but he came off the Ritalin because it gave him nausea.” Rutledge cackled when he realised what this meant.

“Amazing. Incredible, even. This man paid… probably about thirty dollars to calm down. And feel sick.” Hall giggled. “But seriously. It seems like you’ve going to need luck to get… well, anything out of this,” Hall said, making a face and raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Rutledge sighed. “Well, I will give you my number…” He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from a notepad. “So I suppose… call me tomorrow? Or I can come here on the way to work, whichever’s easier.”

“It shouldn’t take me too long,” Hall said, but he still took Rutledge’s number and put it into his phone so that he could text him later. “Actually, I could probably do it now, if you don’t mind waiting about for… well, I’d say about ten minutes.”

“Hey, if it isn’t too much trouble; I don’t want to keep you from anything,” Rutledge said. Although he was secretly quite pleased to have Hall’s undivided attention, because he was really quite attractive.

“No, no. I don’t have a whole lot to do and honestly this is the most entertainment I’ve had all week. I owe you one, really.” Hall grinned.

It ended up taking well over ten minutes to get the pathology report finished. Not because there was anything particularly complicated about it – quite on the contrary, it was every bit as straightforward as Hall was expecting – but because Hall and Rutledge got distracted by conversation with each-other. All in all, they finished about an hour after Rutledge first started talking to Hall.

“Since I have your number now and you have mine…” Hall glanced over at Rutledge as the two of them walked across the car park – Hall was going to give Rutledge a lift back to the law firm. “How about, if you manage to get this guy… well, less than life, really, for all the possession and bad driving, I’ll take you out for coffee.”

Rutledge grinned. “And if I _don’t_ get him the minimum…?”

“See, I was _going_ to say I’d still buy you coffee, because you’re pretty cute…” Rutledge mimed offense. “But since you bring it up, if you don’t get him the minimum, you have to buy me coffee.” He grinned.

Rutledge pretended to think it over for a moment, although he had decided the moment Hall had suggested it, and then grinned broadly. “…Yeah, why not? I mean, it’s hardly a fate worse than death.”

“Exactly what I was going to say,” Hall said, laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

“You look happy.” Dickinson looked deeply suspiciously at Rutledge, leaning over his coffee before giving up and putting his head on his desk.

“I am, yes.” Rutledge smirked at him. “And you…” He looked Dickinson up and down. “You, sir, do not.”

“And that is because I am not.” Rutledge hadn’t noticed before, but Dickinson sounded half-dead. “There’s a flask on that shelf next to you,” he croaked. “Could you…?”

Rutledge picked the flask up, opened it, and sniffed it. “Good Lord, y’all’re feelin’ that bad?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and giving the flask to Dickinson.

Dickinson coughed and poured the contents of the flask into his coffee in response. Rutledge flopped down at his desk and leaned his head sideways to click his neck. Dickinson glowered at him over his coffee. “What’s up with you?” Rutledge asked, finally.

“I caught Sally’s ‘flu. And so did Polly, Jack, and Maria, so nobody has slept. Especially not the baby,” he grumbled, groggily adjusting his glasses. “And now I feel like I am physically going to drop off the face of the Earth.”

“In which case, you can stay over there for the duration of the day,” Rutledge said, making a melodramatic gesture over to Dickinson’s side of the office. This coming from anybody else, Dickinson would probably have been annoyed, but he liked Rutledge enough not to be annoyed.

Dickinson laughed blearily and downed half of his coffee. “Well, fortunately I hardly have anything to do today,” he muttered. “If anybody asks, I am awake.”

“Of course you are, sir.” Rutledge grinned and started making notes on a sheet of paper.

Once he was certain that Dickinson actually _had_ fallen asleep, and wasn’t just pretending to sleep, Rutledge got his phone out of his pocket. There was nothing more that he could do for his idiotic client (the one who had decided to get high on Ritalin and drive a car), and that was the only case he had at present, unless he took on any of Dickinson’s work.

However, he had been talking to Hall on and off for the past few days. They had agreed that, from now on, Franklin was forbidden from writing toxicology reports, and Hall had taken over that job, at least for Rutledge and Dickinson. As with most people, Hall had been more than a little annoyed with Rutledge’s general level of morality, but apparently it was workable.

_Lyman: Any word from the judge about the toxicology report?_

Speaking of which.

_Edward: He wished me luck. /:_

It was exceptional how much sarcasm could be put across using a single emoticon, but Rutledge was the master of it. Despite not usually seeming particularly emotional, he was more than capable of apparently _tricking_ people into thinking that he was.

_Lyman: Well. I wasn’t going to comment otherwise._

_Lyman: But you’ll need it._

_Edward: Rude. (;_

_Lyman: :)_

_Lyman: You forget that I have seen the toxicology report._

_Edward: You wrote the damn thing; I’d have hoped y’all had._

_Lyman: You’d be surprised._

_Edward: This is one occasion upon which I would like not to be._

_Lyman: Dammit._

_Lyman: Okay, “half-assing toxicology reports” is number one on the list of things not to surprise you with. :)_

_Edward: ………………_

_Lyman: :)_

_Edward: :)_

_Edward: Also I can probably come see you during lunch if you want? The other guy in my office has flu. /:_

_Lyman: In which case, half two?_

_Lyman: I have to babysit a centrifuge until then._

_Edward: Excellent; I have to babysit my drunk, overcaffeinated, sick co-worker until then._

_Lyman: …You’re remarkably specific._

_Edward: I will get fed up and send him home at half two._

_Lyman: You’re still remarkably specific._

Dickinson’s phone ringing woke him up. Rutledge hid a laugh behind his hand and briefly got back to work until the older man flopped back on his desk again. “Y’all can go home if you like; I’ll pick your work up.”

“I’m fine,” Dickinson mumbled (or croaked) into his arms, before apparently going back to sleep again.

_Edward: I know I am. I’ll meet you at your office at half two?_

_Lyman: Works for me :)_

_Lyman: Usual coffee shop, or somewhere else?_

_Edward: I’m not fussy. Plus I picked last time._

_Lyman: Okay, same place as usual then :)_


End file.
